


wondering if we're ever gonna get there

by oneworldaway



Category: Sarah Jane Adventures
Genre: F/M, Kinda, road trip fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 15:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneworldaway/pseuds/oneworldaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ruby comes back for revenge; rani and clyde go on the run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wondering if we're ever gonna get there

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from "this is perfect" by margaret berger, the road trip song I've had stuck in my head for months. tried a few new things here. unbeta'd. any mistakes will probably be stealthily corrected later on.

**2:03pm**

they’re still in that sweet spot where none of it feels real yet. the sun keeps beating down on clyde’s mother’s car, but they just keep cranking the AC. they’ve only made one stop so far, a much-needed pitt stop after holding out as long as they could. the more distance they can put between themselves and ealing before they stop, the better. 

the music on the radio hasn’t gotten boring yet. the silences haven’t been awkward. that part’s actually held true the whole time they’ve known each other, thinks clyde. they’ve always been notably comfortable in each other’s presence. and good at putting their heads together and getting things done. that’ll come in handy now, he figures.

for the first time in the hours since they left, though, rani’s smile seems to falter. the radio cuts to static as they drive farther and farther away. clyde’s mother taught him well never to take his eyes off the road, but he can feel the way her posture changes - he can _sense_ that something’s different, somehow. which doesn’t really surprise him. it’s just the way they know each other.

“what is it?”

rani sighs and turns the radio off suddenly. “static. it’s unnerving.”

“rani?”

she turns to look out her window. “how long d’you think we’ll have to stay away?” she wonders aloud. it’s not really a question - she knows he has no more idea than she does. “how are we gonna make this work?”

“i don’t know,” says clyde. there’s really nothing more to say.

but he takes one hand off the steering wheel to clasp hers, and she gently squeezes back.

 

**2:57pm**

“it’s us against the world, right?” clyde says suddenly, breaking the silence. “you and me. that’s not so bad. been there before, haven’t we?”

rani laughs softly. “there wasn’t much of a world for us to be up against, considering everyone else had been sucked into space limbo.”

“well yeah,” says clyde, “but we were on our own. and we were okay.”

he hears the smile in her voice.

“yeah. we were.”

 

**morning**

they weren’t sure yet how ruby had managed to escape her prison again, but there was no time to sit around pondering such questions. she was coming, and they needed to run.

“we’ll get somewhere safe,” explained sarah jane, “we’ll figure out her game plan, and then we’ll deal with her, just like we always do.” she was unflappable as ever, and it had a calming effect on the rest of them. the wheels in luke’s head were already turning, trying to work out how to get them out of this. clyde buried the unsettling memories of his closest brush with death beneath his determination to remain his upbeat self, while rani buried hers under her determination to stop, once and for all, the person who’d nearly taken clyde away from them. sky was a bit scared, but with her whole family around her, promising to keep her safe, she kept her head up.

the smiths loaded their things into sarah jane’s car, while clyde and rani were taking carla’s - he’d been using it more and more lately, and she trusted him enough to send him off on a road trip in it. he’d left out the details of their trip. they were headed to a cottage in a wooded area a couple of hours out of the city that had once been inhabited by a harmless, stranded alien who sarah jane had helped to return home. the alien had lived there for years without being found, so it seemed their best option for a safe house. they were just about to get into their cars when a picture of the cottage burning down was sent to all of their phones.

for the briefest of moments, sarah jane’s calm exterior faltered. but she’d let luke see her break down once, when the daleks had taken the planet, and she would _never_ panic in front of her children again. still, none of them knew what to do now.

“so we’ll drive until we find someplace else,” said luke, “somewhere none of us have ever been before.”

clyde sighed. “you know, it’s times like this that I wish--”

he was cut off by a strange but familiar sound that stopped all of them in their tracks.

improbably, his wish had already been granted.

 

**6:22pm**

they stop for more fast food, intending to keep going at least until it gets dark. rani wonders how long they’ll be living on burgers and shakes. clyde wonders how long they’ll really be able to do this without biting each others’ heads off.

“so what kind of place should we stop at for the night?” she brings up conversationally between bites.

“I’m not fussed, as long as there’s a bed,” says clyde, and it takes him a few seconds to realize what he’s said. “or beds. a couple of beds.” his smile grows uneasy, and rani feels her insides twist uncomfortably.

there are conversations they’ve never had, but they’ve known for awhile now that they can’t be put off much longer. after ellie, it’d be foolish to keep pretending that they don’t know where this is headed. sometimes, waiting to fall asleep at night, rani wonders why they didn’t just give up and start kissing each other years ago. but now they’re running for their lives, and that tends to complicate things. she doesn’t want to rush into anything under the wrong circumstances.

she swallows another bite of her burger and tries not to remember the feel of his lips pressed against her cheek.

 

**morning**

“what is that?” asked sky incredulously.

sarah jane’s eyes seemed to sparkle. “that, sky, is the tardis.”

“the doctor’s time machine?”

“it’s also a spaceship,” clyde informed her, grinning ear to ear.

sarah jane took sky’s hand and was off like a shot, and luke followed with k9. rani and clyde closed the car doors and ran after them just as the tardis finished materializing a way’s down the road.

the door swung open, and clyde watched as the doctor’s hand popped out, ushering sarah jane and sky inside, then luke and k9.

halfway down the street, rani’s mobile was shaken out of her pocket, crashing down onto the asphalt. clyde’s head whipped around as she stopped to pick it up, and he waited for her to catch up to him.

he saw her eyes widen just before he heard the tardis door slam shut.

turning back around, he watched, a sinking feeling in his stomach, as the tardis began to dematerialize.

“doctor!” they both shouted, running the rest of the way over and pounding on what was left of the ship’s door.

a moment later, it had disappeared entirely.

 

**11:18pm**

it isn’t much of a room. sparsely furnished, and nothing really matches. there’s only one bed.

clyde offers to take the floor, but rani’s lips are moving before her head can catch up.

“it’s fine if we share the bed, really. we’ve passed out in luke’s room before, what’s the difference?”

clyde seems unconvinced, but the floor doesn’t look particularly comfortable. and in all honesty, rani doesn’t _mind_ the idea of sleeping next to him. it’s more the matter of just how little she minds it.

but the night passes slowly, and in the face of the uncertainty that lies ahead, neither of them can fall asleep.

rani feels she might burst if they lie there in silence for one more moment, when clyde finally gives up.

“think he left without us on purpose?”

rani looks at him in surprise. “he wouldn’t.”

“maybe he had a reason,” says clyde. “he always seems to have a reason for doing things the way he does.” he thinks back not only on the two times they’ve met him, but on the stories sarah jane and luke have told them. how he dropped sarah jane off in the wrong place when they stopped travelling together. how he saved luke from walking into traffic before running off as quickly as he’d appeared. how clyde had once found himself alone in a junkyard on another planet, cursing the doctor’s name, only to be brought back to earth a few minutes later. maybe, he thinks, this will all make sense in a day or two.

or maybe they’ve been left for dead.

 

**10:45am**

it storms when they first get back on the road, and clyde can’t resist the terminator joke. he plugs in his ipod this time, while rani takes a turn driving, so there’ll be no more static or silence. they both relax into the music, and everything else begins to fade away. the vengeful alien chasing after them. their families back home, still believing them to be on holiday with luke. the tardis leaving them behind.

for awhile, it’s just rani and clyde, the music, and the road.

 

**yesterday**

“we need to get out of here,” clyde shouted, heading back to sarah jane’s driveway. 

“what? but what if they come back for us?”

“you wanna wait around here and see if ruby or the doctor shows up first?”

they waited for a couple of minutes, killing time by checking to make sure the house and sarah jane’s car were locked up. then, they paused.

there was no sign of the tardis.

“we have to go,” he said nervously, and rani knew he was right.

“but where?”

clyde cast one last look at the spot where the tardis had stood moments before. his shoulders sagged. “somewhere we’ve never been before, like luke said. any place she can’t connect us to.”

and so, they go.

 

**4:06pm**

clyde fills the tank while rani stocks up on snacks. she tosses the bags of crisps into the back and collapses into the passenger seat.

they’ve been through it all together, she thinks. they’ve faced off against some of the universe’s worst, and they’ve shared everything from chemistry notes to a bed. and no matter what’s happening to them, clyde is her constant. he fits into her life like he’s always been the missing piece.

clyde gets back into the car.

he’s barely shut the door before she pounces.

 

**4:08pm**

he’s confused at first, before he eases into it. her hands are on his hips, her mouth on his, and it feels perfect - and inevitable. but then those hands are sliding under his shirt, scratching at his skin, and suddenly he remembers where they are.

“rani. rani,” he breathes, reluctantly pushing her back. “rani, we can’t do this, not right now.”

“oh,” she says, and their stomachs lurch in tandem as both worry they’ve done the wrong thing. rani slides back into her seat, but clyde reaches out to cup her face.

“it’s not that I don’t want to,” he says without a moment’s hesitation, inwardly surprised at his own confidence. but he’s only played out, what, two dozen variations of this scene in his head before? “I do. but we have to keep moving.”

“right,” says rani, letting out a breath she hadn’t intended to hold. (she hadn’t intended for much of anything to happen today, but here they are.)

“rani...” he murmurs, brushing a thumb over her cheek. she leans in and kisses him sweetly.

“there’ll be time for that later, right?”

 

**11:55pm**

they’ve been dancing around this for years now. but they were young, and busy, and surrounded by parents. here they are now, nineteen and hours away from home, the whole night stretching out ahead of them.

there’s an ice bucket under the bedside table. (clyde draws the curtains.) a laminated listing of local channels next to the TV. (rani deadbolts the door.) a bible in the drawer. (clyde wills his hands to stop shaking.)

luke started calling them “clani” awhile after he left for uni. and then he kept using it. in front of sarah jane and sky, and probably his friends at school, too. rani and clyde, clyde and rani. the three of them will always be a team, but rani and clyde are indisputably a pair. lord clyde and lady rani of some planet out there ruled by a kindly young king. the only two people on earth sentenced never to leave. the only two left.

they’ll never be alone, because they have each other.

 

**1:17pm**

“I should probably call my mum again later,” clyde thinks aloud, “check in.” what exactly he’ll tell her is another matter.

staying in any one place sounds like a bad idea, so they’ve opted to keep moving. torchwood has come up more than once in their discussions - they know their headquarters is in cardiff, even though they’re not supposed to - but it seems too likely that ruby might know about them. and besides, they’ve heard whispers that there may not even be any of “them” left. (the thought makes them both feel uneasy, little as they may really know about torchwood.)

when they stop for lunch, clyde tries to play footsie with rani under the table. she raises an eyebrow, as if to ask, _really?_ but the grin he responds with is so sincere, she doesn’t bother to kick his foot away.

 

**12:02am**

“you know,” says clyde, “when ruby trapped me in her prison, I tried to leave you all a message on my phone. to say goodbye.”

rani sucks in a breath. they’ve never talked about it much, but she knows it was far too close a call. she shifts a little in his arms.

“don’t know what I thought I’d do with it. as if I was going to have reception in space. I saved you for last, though.” he breathes in deeply, as if remembering how it felt to run out of air. “I think I was going to tell you I liked you. I passed out halfway through. next thing I knew, I was back in sarah jane’s attic with you.”

rani kisses him softly. “I’ll never let her hurt you again. I promise.”

“back at you.”

 

**3:30pm**

rani closes her eyes, savouring the moment. sunlight warms her sore limbs after days spent sitting in a car, and the smell of the ocean brings happy memories flooding back to her. holidays with her parents when she was little. her last school trip with sam and her old classmates before she moved to london. the day she went to the beach with clyde and luke, just the three of them, not long before luke left for oxford.

she turns to see clyde leaning against the hood of the car, watching her. he doesn’t look the slightest bit bashful over being caught, and rani smiles back at him.

“just a few minutes,” she calls over to him, and for a second she pouts like she’s a little kid again, begging her parents to stop for ice cream.

after a moment’s pause, clyde takes his shoes off and begins to roll up his pants, and rani beams at him - probably brighter than the sun, he reckons.

 

**12:59pm**

“you okay?” asks clyde, as soon as the car has stopped and he’s established that he’s still alive. he undoes his seatbelt and reaches for rani, but she’s already out of hers and launching herself at him.

“I’m okay,” she gasps out, holding him tightly. “you?”

“fine,” he says into her hair, only reluctantly pulling away. he looks out the window. “what the _hell_ just happened?”

he was paying attention to the road as well as ever. the other car appeared out of nowhere.

he heard the sickening _crunch_ of the impact as he determinedly swerved out of the way, but when he brought the car to a stop on the side of the road, it remained, mercifully, in one piece.

climbing out, he surveys the damage. there’s a dent in his mother’s car now, and the paint job will need some touching up, but all things considered, it could’ve been a lot worse. the other car looks a bit worse for the wear - the entire front bumper’s fallen off - and he hopes this won’t turn into a blowout. particularly when it was the other driver’s fault, anyway.

“alright?” he calls out, unable to see the driver of the bright red car through its tinted windows as he approaches it.

the door opens, and clyde’s heart stops.

ruby steps out of the car.

 

**1:00pm**

“we meet again!” says ruby brightly, stepping around her car to face clyde, clearly uninjured. rani emerges from the car, too, and runs to clyde’s side. for a few long seconds they just stand there, sizing each other up.

“oh, did you _really_ think you could hide from me forever? and all on your own? silly children,” she laughs.

“we’ve stopped you on our own before,” spits rani, and clyde can feel the rage radiating off of her already. he’s never seen her like this before.

“I think you’re forgetting about a certain _boy genius_ who came to your aid.”

“we’ve faced worse than you without him,” shouts clyde. “I think _you’ve_ underestimated your opponents.”

“have I, now?” she asks, her eyes widening in mock surprise. “well, then I suppose you’ll have a way out of this in mind, as well.”

and ruby pulls a gun.

before clyde’s brain can catch up, rani is standing fully in front of him, blocking him from ruby. “rani!” he yells, but she thrusts out an arm to hold him back, not even looking at him.

“you’re not getting near him.”

“you don’t have a choice,” says ruby. “I’m the one with the gun.”

clyde fights his way back to rani’s side, and he’s breathless - and not just because of the gun being pointed at them. the weight of rani’s feelings for him hits him much harder than ruby’s car did.

“we could’ve had a lovely time together, watching the world crumble around us,” ruby goes on. “I might’ve let you both stay by my side while I fed off the chaos. it would’ve been beautiful.”

“how could the end of the world be beautiful?” asks clyde with disgust. “you do know we protect the world from people like you.”

“yes, and that’s such a shame. you really didn’t have to die.”

“and yet, here we are,” says rani, staring down the barrel of the gun.

“here we are,” ruby snarls.

“how’d you get out of your prison again, anyway? we took away your gameboy,” clyde recalls, and he’s surprised how easily the words are coming. they’ve done near death before, but never like this, yet a strange feeling of calm has settled over him. they’ve never had the luxury of panicking, anyway.

ruby smirks. “I have my ways. I’m quite clever, you know.”

“yeah, well not clever enough,” says rani. ruby moves towards her, getting as close as she can with her arm still extended, gun trained on rani’s head.

“and what would you know about cleverness? you’re just a child, and I’ve already beaten you.”

the look in rani’s eyes is one of steely determination. “I’m not a child,” she says, and then she’s kicking ruby’s feet right out from under her, and ruby’s on the ground, and rani’s wrestled the gun from her hands and pointed it at _her_.

“and you haven’t beaten us yet.”

clyde stands on the sidelines, dumbfounded.

ruby allows herself only a moment of surprise before she regains her footing, slowly, never taking her eyes off of rani. “now, we both know you’re not going to shoot me with that,” she sneers. “we’ve been through this before, rani.”

“don’t be so sure,” rani pants.

“rani!” clyde shouts, and he’s scared, so scared, of what she might do - of what it might do to her.

but what other choice do they have?

“you were going to kill us,” says rani. “you _tried_ to kill clyde, and sarah jane.”

“rani, wait!”

“I don’t want to use this. not at all,” she says, “but I will if you try to hurt us one more time.”

ruby tilts her head inquisitively. “so what _are_ you going to do, then?”

rani steals a glance at clyde. “we could call unit,” she suggests. “they could come out here and get her, take her away.”

it isn’t a bad idea, and clyde’s already reaching into his pocket for his mobile, but something gives him pause. it’s the look on ruby’s face, and the feeling in the air like something bad is about to happen. like ruby’s still ready for a fight. rani managed to get the gun out of ruby’s hands; who says ruby won’t be able to take it back?

and then, something in the air shifts. the wind picks up, and a funny sound reaches clyde’s ears...

 

**1:03pm**

rani drops the gun and kicks it away from all of them. clyde moves to embrace her, and in an instant, they’re wrapped in the arms of the entire smith family, too.

the doctor’s expression is cold as he steps out of the tardis. they’ve only seen glimpses of him like this before.

“would you like to tell me what you think you’re doing, _hunting_ my friends?”

he steps towards ruby slowly.

“and what are _you_ going to do to stop me?” she asks, though her smugness is beginning to fade. “strangle me with your bow tie?” 

“no, ruby,” the doctor replies. “I’m not going to hurt you. people like you think destruction is the answer to everything, but the rest of us know better.” something about his face twitches just slightly in anger. “what happens to you next is up to _them_.”

 

**1:05pm**

“did the doctor call them?” asks clyde, watching the judoon load ruby into their ship.

“the tardis just took us to them,” says luke. “we were trying to get back to you guys, but we wound up at their headquarters.”

“it seems they’d been on the lookout for ruby for awhile now,” says the doctor, joining them. “she landed on their radar when she sent clyde into space. they don’t like you doing that with people they’ve grounded on earth.”

“who knew our grounding would come in handy again?” clyde laughs, and rani looks almost giddy with relief.

“again?” the doctor asks, puzzled.

“we’ll tell you later.”

“yes, well, on that note!” the doctor claps his hands together in excitement. “while we were there, I made a point of inquiring into your sentence. those judoon, they really can be a bit rash, and they don’t seem to like having their missteps pointed out to them by someone who, well, I don’t want to stay I’m better at their job than they--”

“doctor,” sarah jane interrupts, a warning tone to her voice.

“yes, right,” says the doctor. “rani, clyde, you’ve both been officially ungrounded.”

he steps right up to them (and sarah jane comes dangerously close to rolling her eyes at his attempt at dramatic effect).

“how would you like to go on a little trip?”

 

**1:10pm**

“d’you think he’ll really come back?” clyde wonders, watching the tardis fade, once again, as he gets into the driver’s seat. hopping right into the tardis and abandoning his mother’s car on the side of the road wasn’t exactly an option. but this time, sarah jane, luke, and sky are in the car with them. it’s a bit of a squeeze with k9 there, too, but somehow they manage.

“it’s hard to say, with him,” says sarah jane, in the passenger seat. “but he did a good thing, getting the judoon to unground you.” she looks at clyde almost wistfully. “and I think you’ve earned it, if you want to go.”

clyde smiles, but stills for a moment after closing the door. “so he really didn’t mean to leave us behind?”

“of course not!” sarah jane exclaims, looking from clyde to rani in the backseat. “and we wanted to come back the second we landed at the judoon headquarters.”

“for a second I thought mum was going to hit him,” luke adds.

“but the judoon were able to help us with ruby,” says sky.

“sometimes, when I traveled with the doctor, we wouldn’t wind up wherever we were trying to go,” says sarah jane. “but he used to say that the tardis took us wherever we were most needed.”

“I didn’t know the tardis could think for itself,” rani muses.

there’s a little twinkle in sarah jane’s eye. “it’s much more than just a ship.”

“so it took off before we could get in because we were grounded?” clyde theorizes.

“perhaps,” says sarah jane, “or maybe there was some other reason. you said you’ve been on the road for five days. did anything unusual happen?”

clyde looks at rani in the rear view mirror.

he can’t exactly say any of this has been “usual” for either of them. but it wasn’t entirely unexpected, either.

 

**january**

“not a bad view,” says clyde, standing in the tardis doorway, watching the earth spin below them.

“you can say that again.”

clyde turns around to raise an eyebrow at rani. “are you looking at my butt?”

“I’m sure I don’t know _what_ you’re talking about.”

rani chuckles as clyde steps back to pull her into his arms, resting his head on her shoulder. she looks down at the planet below them.

“yeah. this’ll do.”

 

**2008**

“I like her,” said clyde, watching the new girl - _rani_ \- open her locker.

“you’ve only just met her,” said luke.

“doesn’t matter,” clyde shrugged. “yeah, I’ve got a good feeling about this one. I think I’m gonna show her the universe.”

“you can’t even _tell_ her about the universe,” luke reminded him.

but something gave clyde the feeling that he could tell her anything.


End file.
